


Pamphleteer: Baseball Drabbles

by allegheny



Category: Baseball RPF
Genre: 2008 World Series, Drabble Collection, Gen, Injury Angst, Lovesick rookies, M/M, Post-Concussion Syndrome, Rookies & Vets, Tommy John Surgery, trade angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2020-08-10 12:01:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20135122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allegheny/pseuds/allegheny
Summary: A collection of drabbles, double drabbles, and triple drabbles.





	1. "Choppy Seas" - Joe Biagini/Aaron Sanchez (Drabble)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100 words. Biagini played in his hometown SF Giants' farm system for years before Toronto took him in the rule 5. The Blue Jays are everything Sanchez had ever known when they both got traded to Houston.

It’s like a boat rocked by the tide, it knocks them both over. They sway on choppy waters, from Kansas City to Houston, choking on the bayou.

Joe can feel Aaron’s sea-sickness, his feet looking for purchase, for a slope towards the lake: a young uprooted maple tree.

Joe’s come, and he’s gone. Circled redwoods tall, until he couldn’t anymore, until it was time.

He’d held Aaron’s hand when the plane shook like a bark in a tempest. Let Aaron answer his silent question as the Gulf of Mexico arched into green marshes.

“This doesn’t remind me of San Bernadino.”


	2. "Smokestacks" - Derek Dietrich/Yasiel Puig (Drabble)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 100 words. Dietrich is from Cleveland. Puig got traded there from Cincinnati mid-season.

“I miss you, twenty-two.”

And Derek knows he shouldn’t — knows it’s hopeless. Knows it’s a business and ruthlessness prevails. Speaks his bad Spanish proud and holds Iggy closer to his chest.

He misses him too, like he’s never missed someone he's known only four months.  
They’d felt like the smokestacks in centerfield, dual and future-past, committed promises to nothing. They’d made a soul together and floated it down the Ohio river.

Derek misses that stolen kiss late at night by the hot tub, still feels its sweetness on his lips.  
He misses Lake Erie’s shores, and he wants Yasiel back.


	3. "Gemel Pines" - Justin Morneau & Joe Mauer (Double Drabble)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 200 words. In 2012, Morneau was abysmally depressed, run down by PCS. He worried teammates and ex-teammates.

_"This is Justin Morneau. I'm not available right now. Please leave a message."_

Dodge me once, shame on you. Dodge me thrice... old teammates are calling Joe, concern a thick blanket on their voices. Have you heard from him lately? 

Not enough.

Morneau's a ghost across the river, a window gone dark, an airplane falling off the radar.  
He's left his familiar clockwork paths empty, abandoned routines, like a cancelled train service.

And Joe doesn't know what's happening, and that's the terrifying part: losing his best friend to a monster with no face, to the black matter of the brain.  
And it seems like yesterday Morneau was blond and laughing in a sports goods store, a stranger but a kindred soul, an anchor in his new townhome. Hockey pads and all, leaning in the corner of his room like a memento to minor concussions. 

There's a hole carved for Morneau everywhere in Joe's life. A lineup order, a partnered certainty, a shadow always next to his ; a shared locker, a brotherhood of stuff, the things they keep intertwined like roots. 

Grown together, like two gemel pines.

So Joe's not giving up on him.  
So he's driving up to Morneau's house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gemels are intertwined, merged trees.


	4. "Losing Battle" - Andrew McCutchen/David Robertson (Triple Drabble)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 300 words. Two ex-Yankees ending up on the same team at the same time and both suffering season-ending injuries. Happening directly after DRob announced his upcoming Tommy John to the media in August.

David stumbles out of the clubhouse dazed and numb, queasy from the media scrum.  
In the hallway, he wants to take it all in, the frames on the wall spinning around him, of golden plaques, of team photoes, of big snapshots, of glistening trophies. 

His hands look for holds as he tries to fight off the truth, to throw off reality, to wrestle away the knowledge that there won't be another time, that this was his last chance. That after years of bending he broke at last, like a faithful tool that's fulfilled its purpose, that you don't have any remorse finally throwing away. 

He's an old pen, a broken plate. He's an outdated computer.  
Back against the wall, he's losing the battle, too old to strike, too slow to dodge; locked in a slow, tired tugging dance with his own future.

And then there's Andrew on crutches, hobbling towards him, and there's his dark hands running over David's bare arms. There's Andrew's kind, heavy almond eyes, the same they were when David first met him, bent over the clubhouse sink at New Yankee Stadium, shaving off his San Francisco beard. There's Andrew's plump lips and his cupid's bow bristly with his moustache, dragging against David's bitten mouth.  
There's Andrew, warm like a fire, holding him down to earth when his feet want to lift off, when his racing mind wants to spiral up and up and up and bring him with it to the stratosphere, losing him in the breathless void of uncertainty. 

And David knows he'll be going under the knife in a few weeks.  
And David knows this might be the end for him.  
But then, he knows Andrew will be there with him, steady and solid, kindred and loving.  
From the windup, to the curtain call.


	5. "Debut" - Jacob DeGrom & David Wright (Drabble)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 100 words. deGrom debuted against the yankees and held them to one run. at the time, he wasn't a huge top prospect. he really looked up to Wright, though.

Jacob is nervous, there’s no ignoring it.  
The butterflies had started yesterday on the plane to New York; now they were a full-on storm, spinning in his stomach, making him nauseous.  
He hadn’t even been told he would be starting when he left Vegas. Well, here he is, vibrating at his locker in a major league clubhouse. 

“Hey, kid!” 

David Wright, in his undershirt and rolled up pants, is smiling at him, hand outstretched for Jacob to shake. 

“Don’t sweat it, alright? You’re gonna do great. You’ll show them.”

And he seems so sincere Jacob can’t help but believe him.


	6. "Dinner" - Pete Alonso/Aaron Judge (Double Drabble)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 200 words. Rookie record-breakers, [unite!](https://www.sny.tv/mets/news/mets-pete-alonso-is-ready-to-take-up-aaron-judges-dinner-offer-and-he-knows-just-the-place/310956444/)

Damn, Judge cleans up nice.   
Pete made his best effort at a smart-casual look. But Judge looks dashing with his shiny auburn coils and his stylish rectangular glasses. He's got this nice white shirt on that's probably tailored to his perfect body, because Pete can clearly see the definition of his chest. He feels a little self-conscious, as much as he hates realising it, because, well, his tubby shape doesn't exactly hold a candle to Judge's toned figure. Anyway, they hug in front of Peter Luger's, a good old bro-hug, and damn, on top of that, the fucker's tall — it's insane, Pete tends to forget. 

He's a little nervous that they'll get recognised: he's not quite used to New York yet, and he's had people come up to him around his Queens apartment. It's not that he dislikes it, people have been nothing but full of praise for him, and the fact Judge offered to invite him is hardly a secret. But for some reason, he can't stop checking over his shoulder, and—

"So," Judge smiles at him from behind his menu. "What are you getting?"

Pete's heart starts beating faster. Oh crap. If only he didn't crush so easily.


	7. "Cinderella Story" - Rocco Baldelli, Andy Sonnanstine, David Price (Drabble)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 100 words.

Everything about this feels like a goddamn nightmare and it's not just about how tired Baldelli feels.  
It's the hellish noise shaking this place down to its concrete pillars. It's the chaos of men piled together on the field like a mound of flesh. It's Sonnanstine's hateful purple-lined glare burning daggers in all the flailing red-pinstriped bodies like semi-automatic gunfire, that furious look of desperation, the ticking clock on his shoulder. It's Price's dumbfounded thousand yard stare, it's this post-season trauma etching itself into the rookie's brain. 

Baldelli's whole body racks him. 

This was supposed to be their year.  
Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> About the Rays's WS loss to the Phillies in 08. Andy Sonnanstine is my favourite extremely strange yet factually inconsequential baseball player, google him. Baldelli's WS run was affected by a rare mitochondrial disorder that caused him a lot of pain and fatigue and ultimately ended his career.


	8. "A Warning" - Craig Counsell (Drabble)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 100 words. the obligatory pandemicball anxiety drabble. Craig Counsell had a strange career and he's an innovative manager. He's also a hometown guy.

Craig steps back and sucks in a breath, lets the humid Wisconsin summer air fill his lungs. 

Behind his eyelids: his green backyard, his father's voice, the neighborhood kids yelling him to home base. So much has changed. And yet the last of the season's soft lake breeze still caresses his face just the same. 

Craig's no stranger to strange things. He's not afraid— not exactly. It's not that, the rush of fatherly instinct as he reviews his lineup.

It's just, when he picks up the ball, blood red seams, it fits oddly, foreign in his hand.

Like a warning.


End file.
